Authorities are cracking down on those who use the most vulnerable people in society to transport illegal substances. Zhang Yi reports.

Police have opened a new front in the war on drugs by targeting traffickers who recruit the disabled and other vulnerable people as couriers, or "mules".

Drug gangs target these groups - people with disabilities or chronic illnesses, plus pregnant or lactating women - because Chinese law contains a number of clauses that allow them to avoid prison. That, plus the offer of "easy money", is often enough for those from the poorest sections of society to run the risks associated with the trade.

Last year, more than 5,300 vulnerable people were detained while transporting narcotics, according to the latest annual report on the country's drug situation.

Of those, 782 were foreign nationals, and a large number were from Myanmar, according to the report, released last month by the Office of National Narcotics Control Commission, China's top anti-drug authority.

In August, a pregnant 18-year-old woman from Myanmar was caught with nearly 3 kilograms of methamphetamine stashed in 80 mooncakes, a traditional Chinese delicacy.

The mule, who had been hired to carry the narcotics from Myanmar to Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, was caught as she was about to deliver the mooncakes to the buyer. In her confession, she said she was due to receive 5,000 yuan ($730) when the deal was closed.

In a similar case, a 16-year-old Myanmarese girl was caught at a bus station in Kunming with about 2.8 kg of meth concealed in two boxes of mooncakes.

Under China's Criminal Procedure Law, the disabled, people with chronic illnesses or acute infectious diseases, and pregnant or lactating women, can file for bail prior to conviction, and later apply for medical parole that will allow them to serve their sentences outside prison.

Even if they are convicted and sentenced, they can avoid jail if they are physically unfit for imprisonment, according to Wei Jie, a criminal law specialist with the Jieqiang Law Firm in Beijing.

Parole regulations

"For example, the parole regulation, amended in 2014, allows people with acute or infectious illnesses to apply for medical parole," he said.

"Usually, they don't have to serve their sentences in jail if they present a doctor's note to the prison authorities saying that they have to receive inpatient treatment at a hospital."

These offenders serve their sentences in their home communities, which are obliged to supervise them, and they are not allowed to leave their city of residence until the full sentence has been served.

These people rarely have the capacity for work and are not financially well-off, he said, which means they are easily tempted by the small amounts of money offered by drug dealers.

"They believe they have a higher chance of avoiding a police search in the first place. For instance, in some cases, drugs have been discovered stashed in prosthetic limbs to thwart body searches," Wei said.

The report revealed a rising trend of foreign drug gangs using such people to transport narcotics. Many of those detained were carrying drugs from Myanamar into the southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Guizhou.

Rising demand

Last year, rising demand in China resulted in a greater number of foreign nationals becoming involved in cross-border trafficking, according to Liu Yuejin, deputy head of the National Narcotics Control Commission.

Moreover, drug gangs became more active in the border areas of Yunnan province and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region because of close ties with countries in the Golden Triangle, an area that straddles Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, and the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan), the main production areas for heroin and meth, he said.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security's national drug testing laboratory, more than 95 percent of the heroin seized in China last year came from the Golden Triangle. Meanwhile, 87 percent of meth seized came from the same area.

The commission's data revealed that 1,876 foreign nationals were caught attempting to smuggle 6.6 metric tons of various narcotics into China last year.

In addition to those from neighboring countries, a large number of people from the African continent were also found to be carrying heroin from the Golden Crescent.

In July, when a South African woman was stopped at customs in Beijing, she was found to have stashed 1 kg of cocaine in body cavities and her underwear.

In February, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and will be deported when she is released.

The commission said drug trafficking is highly orchestrated by drug lords, and many gangs have formed loose coalitions that allow them to operate cross-border networks. Last year, more than 5,000 drug rings were busted and around 1,100 leading members were arrested.

In the wake of the rising number of drug crimes involving disabled and vulnerable people, law enforcement authorities have decided to adopt an "iron fist" approach to those who deliberately exploit legal protections and loopholes.

On April 20 last year, Tao Guangyu, a blind woman in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, was executed for drug trafficking. It was a rare case of the death penalty being pronounced on a disabled person in a drug case.

The 50-something, a well-known drug dealer in the city, had been apprehended twice before, but had managed to avoid jail by invoking the legal protection offered by her disability.

When she was caught a third time, Tao didn't tell her lawyer, Zhu Yuedong, that she already had two convictions. Instead, she asked him to apply for bail on her behalf.

When Zhu discovered the quantities of drugs Tao had sold, he knew she would receive the death sentence.

Tao's blindness was the result of an inherited condition that worsened progressively until she became almost completely blind in 2011. At that point she began using drugs and also organized family members to traffic narcotics.

She used her father, who is also blind, and her then-pregnant daughter to deliver drugs to buyers. They, along with Tao's brother and sister-in-law, were also jailed for their involvement.

According to the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court, which handed down Tao's death sentence, the number of drug cases has risen in recent years. The use of women as mules has become a prominent theme in drug cases tried at the court, whose statistics show that it tried 13 women for drug trafficking in 2013, but the number doubled in 2015.

Ruan Qilin, a professor of criminal law at the China University of Political Science and Law, said those who use disabled or vulnerable people in drug deals should face severe punishment to prevent the practice from becoming widespread.

He urged authorities to use community correction to supervise convicted traffickers who are unfit for prison so they will not become repeat offenders, and suggested vulnerable people should be allocated more social security benefits so they won't feel the need to make extra money through illegal activities.

Contact the writer at zhang_yi@chinadaily.com.cn

 

 

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